Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Servile Nation

Time to even things up: Advocates of universal enslavement are planning to hold a "National Service Summit" in New York City this September. In anticipation of the advent of St. Barack's Millennial Kingdom, advocates of state-mandated "service" will push for enactment of legislation requiring all 18-26 year olds waste at least two years of their lives in government-imposed slavery.Service is a pervasive blessing of a free-market society -- or even a society as cankered with collectivism as ours has become.

Every second of each day, countless acts of service are being rendered. They are performed by auto mechanics and attorneys, doctors and dog groomers, musicians and manicurists; service is given by "sales" associates in our much-maligned retail superstores, by taxi drivers, by convenience store clerks.

Those services are offered in voluntary exchange for money (well, the government-issued simulacrum of the same) on terms that are mutually beneficial to the buyer and seller.

Altruistic service likewise abounds in the United States. It takes place in families, religious communities, private clubs and fraternal organizations, and in the form of spontaneous individual acts of conscience.

To an advocate of "National Service," however, none of these activities are innately worthwhile. They haven't been mandated or certified by the State. Thus they are missing the magic ingredient that supposedly makes government "service" morally superior to the private variety: Coercion.

From that perspective, the janitor who cleans up a shopping mall in exchange for a paycheck is to be disdained as someone seeking his own economic benefit, while an AmeriCorps "volunteer" who cleans up a public park in exchange for money extorted from taxpayers at gunpoint is to be celebrated as the embodiment of the Common Good. Yes, they both perform the same function, but only the labor of the latter has been consecrated through the exercise of government coercion.

Contemporary advocates of National Service, whether they admit it or not, seek to install coercion -- not commerce or contract -- as the organizing principle of the economy. They likewise seek to indoctrinate young Americans in the idea that human needs are best met through social regimentation administered by a supervisory elite. And behind the conceit expressed in the common refrain that National Service teaches a person to serve something "larger than himself" looms the murderous assumption that the individual exists to serve the pleasure of the State.

All of this explains why modern collectivists, from the Jacobins to the Bolsheviks to their disavowed but unmistakable kindred, the Fascists and National Socialists, have made compulsory universal "service" a central pillar of their totalitarian platforms.

"The Youth belong to the Leader": The Nazi vision of "National Service."

The Jacobins fought a civil war against the heroic Vendeans in the effort to impose conscription -- for both military service and forced labor -- on a recalcitrant population. Decades later, the demand for universal, state-mandated labor and the conscription of "industrial armies" was the eighth plank of the Communist Manifesto.

After the founding of the Soviet regime, Vladimir Lenin insisted that each of its subjects consider himself part of a "great army of free labor" to be used as the Bolshevik oligarchy saw fit. "The generation that is now 15 years old ... must arrange all the tasks of their education in such a way that every day, in every city, the young people shall engage in the practical solution of the problems of common labor, even of the smallest, most simple kind," declared the founding Soviet dictator.

A nearly identical ethic of common servitude was championed by the Fascist regime founded by Benito Mussolini. Fascist theoretician Alfredo Rocco declared: "For Fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends."

In his 1936 book The Philosophy of Fascism, Mario Palmieri explained that under Mussolini's variant of quasi-socialist collectivism, "a true, a great spiritual life cannot take place unless the State has risen to a position of pre-eminence in the world of man. The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified ... with this need of raising the State to its rightful position."

The "rightful position" Palmieri alludes to, of course, is master.

Not many people realize that nearly two decades before Mussolini's ideological priesthood taught those tenets in Italy, the same gospel of collectivism was being preached in the United States under the reign of the despicable Woodrow Wilson. In fact, there's a strong case to be made that fascism and national socialism were invented by American collectivists, rather than their counterparts in Italy or Germany.

"Every man's life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man's property. We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is his only as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and possessions at the call of the state."

Responding to those who condemned conscription as a form of impermissible enforced servitude, Baruch assumed that there is some ineffable quality of government that elevates and purifies officially sanctioned slavery.

"Enforced and involuntary service for a private master," Baruch insisted, "is and has been clearly and repeatedly defined by our Supreme Court as slavery." But this wasn't true of those drafted into the military, or into industrial armies through the Wilson regime's "Work or Fight" program: "A soldier serves the nation directly. There is but one master in the case and that master is America. He serves to profit no one but the country as a whole" -- or, more honestly stated, the government ruling the country.

As someone who lusted to impose an austere uniformity upon irrepressibly individualistic Americans, Baruch was sorely disappointed when World War I ended so quickly.

"Had the war gone on another year, our whole civil population would have gradually emerged (as wardrobes and inventories became exhausted) in cheap but serviceable uniform," he wrote wistfully in his book American Industry in the War, published in 1941 as the Regime in Washington geared up for a second mass bloodletting. "Types of shoes were to be reduced to two or three. The manufacture of pleasure automobiles was to cease."

The authentic face of American fascism: Bernard Baruch, as he appeared while directing the Wilson Regime's War Industries Board.

Although Baruch and his comrades failed to consummate their desire to transform America into a dull gray collectivist monolith, the former War Commissar could take some satisfaction in knowing that his work was appreciated abroad.

Writing of Germany's National Socialist regime, Baruch proudly noted: "German military experts have said, ‘Except for a few minor changes, the German economic mobilization system was conscientiously built in imitation of the similar American system.'"

Let me repeat, and italicize, that admission:

Bernard Baruch, the architect of Wilson's wartime collectivist state, was proud that the Nazi regime was using his program of universal conscription as the blueprint for their own totalitarian order.

A few years before Baruch the Malignant was put in charge of the American economy, social philosopher and psychologist William James devised a slightly different framework for universal slavery. In a 1910 essay of the same name, James introduced a concept that has since become an exceptionally tiresome rhetorical trope: "The Moral Equivalent of War."

As a self-described pacifist, James sought to extract "the higher aspects of military sentiment" from the "bestial side of the war-regime." Like many social engineers who write with extended pinky fingers, James found that there was something about the regimentation and pageantry of militarism that stirred his loins. He mused that there must be some way to preserve the collectivist advantages of war, without all of that icky bloodshed.

Why not have "a conscription of the whole youthful [male] population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature," wrote James, using the term to describe both the physical challenges of a country that was still part wilderness, and those elements of youthful human nature James found disagreeable.

"To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dish-washing, clothes-washing, and window-washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas," wrote James. "They would have paid their blood-tax*.... Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace."

Once again, young men perform all of the various kinds of "service" referred to by James -- as employees or even as business owners.

But this won't do. Only conscripted service will accomplish what he, like other statists, desired: Teach the youngster to put the State at the center of his life, impressing upon him the idea that he belongs to the State, and that anything he has can be demanded of him by the State at any time. Just as importantly, it would preserve the chief "benefit" of war by imposing quasi-military regimentation on young Americans during peacetime.

Epicene collectivist Richard Stengel, who doesn't look like somebody familiar with the proper use of either a shovel or a rifle, seeks to re-institute slavery in the form of mandatory "National Service."

Roughly a century later, Time's Richard Stengel dumbed down and reheated William James's proposal in "A Time to Serve," an essay he published in his little magazine roughly a year ago.

"It may seem like a strange moment to make the case for national service for young Americans when so many are already doing so much," writes Stengel. "Young men and women have made their patriotism all to real by volunteering to fight two wars on foreign soil. But we have battlefields in America, too -- particularly in education and health care -- and the commitment of soldiers abroad has left others yearning to make a parallel commitment here at home."

Two elements of this paragraph shriek out for a response.

First, Stengel identifies education and health care as two areas desperately in need of help. This isn't surprising, given the amount of government involvement in those two fields. This illustrates one of the nastiest hidden aspects of the "National Service" concept: Government creates or exacerbates social problems through corrupt intervention, and then forces people to work for free on behalf of a government-mandated "solution."

Secondly, young people face no impediments should they feel a calling to help clean up the government-created messes in education or health care, or to offer uncompensated service for any other cause. Stengel's disingenuous language about a national service program being a boon to those who want to make a "commitment" of that kind is a variant on a familiar theme -- the idea that conscription would "give youngsters an opportunity to serve," as if such opportunities didn't exist.

Young people face no shortage of opportunities to enlist in the military, or in any of the numerous government-created "service" organizations. The real intent is to reduce their opportunities by forcing them to serve.

Stengel, a co-chairman of the elitist pro-servitude lobby Service Nation, proposes that Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 be required to spend at least one year in "national or military service." This wouldn't be "mandatory," he insists, because in his scheme it would be the taxpayers who are coerced: "Every time an American baby is born, the Federal Government would invest $5,000 in that child's name in a 529-type fund [a college savings account].... At a rate of return of 7% -- the historic return for equities -- that money would total roughly $19,000 by the time that baby reaches age 19." The money would be released after the youngster has paid the "blood tax" of national service.

Stengel's proposal is just one version of what has become the semi-official template for a new conscription program: Various proposals are circulating in which a year or more of "national or military service" would be required of young Americans as a condition of college admission, or financial aid for college.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-New York), who has sponsored legislation to reinstate the military draft based on that concept, has pointed out that although young people could request domestic assignments of various kinds, the final decision as to where the subjects would serve would be made by their masters: "[I]t would seem to me that … you bring everybody in, and then you determine what can you do with them, what contribution can they make?... We can train people to do these non-military jobs. They can go overseas. They can stay here. They could be the eyes and ears."

Those who volunteer for military service today have no control over how or where they serve, and find that the government reserves the power to redefine its service contract at whim. Why should we believe that a universal mandatory service program would operate any differently?

This September 11-12, Service Nation will hold a two-day summit in New York City to inaugurate a year-long campaign to enact a mandatory universal service program. Organizers anticipate the involvement of both John McCain and Barack Obama, who represent complementary halves of the mandatory service concept.

Barack the Blessed (we pause now for a moment of chastened reverence) has proposed the creation of a "civilian national security force" that would be "just as powerful, just as strong" as the military. And like all advocates of government-administered "service," Obama believes that "volunteering" works best when it is mandatory under penalty of law.

Whether it takes the form of a military draft, or the creation of huge armies of state-supervised "free labor," National Service is designed to make the State the central focus in the life of every individual. It is a perverse political sacrament intended to compel subjects to seek first the good of the State and its supposed righteousness.

Rather than catechizing them in collectivism, young people desperately need to be taught that the only genuine public service is that which takes place through commerce and contract, rather than coercion. They should be helped to understand that a youngster who flips hamburgers or mows laws in exchange for a private paycheck is performing a socially useful service immeasurably superior to the purported "service" performed by tax-subsidized drones.

They should be instructed to despise the State and oppose all of its works and pomps -- its fraudulent currency, its fictional reserve banking system, its wars both domestic and foreign. They should be raised to see the State for what it is: The grand impediment to all genuine social progress and the greatest source of needless death and misery in human history.

To put it in a single phrase: Young people must be taught to shun the State as their mortal enemy, rather than to embrace it as their redeemer.

___*To anyone possessed of so much as a whisper of historical perspective, the phrase "blood tax" has a chilling resonance: That expression originally referred to the practice of the Ottoman Turks of stealing young Christian boys, forcibly indoctrinating them in Islam, and deploying them as Janissaries -- occupation forces and tax collectors for the Sultan.

If they ever implement this "national" service, I expect it will be a bit more like the Todt Organization of Hitler than the CCC of Roosevelt. Hypothetical example: Young, naive labor conscripts board a C-141 in Florida. "You're going to help flood victims in Missouri." Fourteen hours later the poor saps emerge onto the tarmac of Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.

The freedom to demonstrate when it meant pulling down authority and seizing power

The freedom of the press to say what it wishes about anything as long as it serves a particular agenda.

The freedom to sexual expression as long as that obviates sexual cleanness.

The freedom to "protect the environment" even when it means destroying the economy of a people.

The freedom of public expression in art, music, theater, as long as Christian values are kept restricted and ever threatened.

The freedom to protect our children... has now come full circle. What do we mean? When Adolph Hitler and his Nazi thugs came to power, they created Hitler Youth by passing a "mandatory" act of "Volunteerism" by conscripting 800,000 Lutheran Christian Youth into their program.

Freedom is being used as a Trojan Horse to destroy liberty. Both McCain and Obama represent what is utterly debased in this march toward tyranny.

McCain is a warmonger.

Obama is a Social Radical who would create government mandated armies by legal decree… (cf. Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and the creation of government social “armies).

Both of these men will undertake what God's Laws condemn. But it instructs us that authorities like these "... would frame mischief with a law."

I wonder if the Christian Church is going to again justify the “lesser of two evils”, when the intensity of evil in both men is beyond moral rectitude, and equates to two different sides of the same Nazi presence that ruined Germany with Obama-like national socialized programs and involved Germany, McCain-like, in World War.

The time is at hand to work at the local level. To put in Magistrates, Judges, Congressmen who will resist, unequivocally, these two diabolical thugs. This is called, historically, the Interposition or “The Revolt of the Lesser Magistrates.”

(google “Black Regiment” )

May God bless those who have the wisdom and the courage to strive at the local level. The Lord assures us in His Word, He does not operate on the principle nor does He convict any person to indulge hope with the alleged principle in choosing the “lesser of two evils.” He who in indignation and wrath, cleansed His temple of corruption while here on earth, demands that we seek repentance and judgment against the same.

The only thing Adolph Hitler really feared was the arousal of a determined Righteousness in the churches of Germany. He never saw that determination… and prevailed.

"The only thing Adolph Hitler really feared was the arousal of a determined Righteousness in the churches of Germany. He never saw that determination… and prevailed."

Wayne, the churches supported Adolf Hitler, and despite all the Jewish propaganda to the contrary, the fact of the matter is, he didn't suppress religious freedom in Germany - he didn't have to - the churches and the people supported him up until the very end. And why wouldn't they,. Hitler was attempting to set them free of the same power that dominates and controls Amerika today, International Jewry AKA Zionism for the feint of heart.

...the churches supported Adolf Hitler, and despite all the Jewish propaganda to the contrary, the fact of the matter is, he didn't suppress religious freedom in Germany - he didn't have to - the churches and the people supported him up until the very end.

This indictment is true, up to a point, but somewhat overbroad. Germany, like America today, was an historically Christian country that was seduced into supporting despotism. And many German churches, just like many American churches today, were eager to be handmaidens to a pagan despotism.

The Nazi regime didn't need to impose severe restrictions on religious liberty most of the time. But as is illustrated by the executions of Franz Jagerstater, Helmuth Heubner, and the White Rose activists, any believer (in terms of his principled action, Heubner qualified) who sought to hold Hitler's regime accountable to God's law was on a collision course for martyrdom.

Hitler, like Stalin, used the Christian church to rally support for the war effort. And like his totalitarian socialist soul-mate (assuming either of them had souls), Hitler planned to liquidate the church once it was no longer needed for that purpose. The Nazis, being Germans, were dutiful archivists of their plans in that regard. A useful overview of some relevant material (including notes on anti-Christian initiatives that took place during the war) can be found at:

Elitists like Stengel, McCain, Obama or Rangel will never serve a minute of such slavery, and nor will anyone with connections to them. Anyone can force others to do slavery that you wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. These people are just your average self-centered chickenhawks. But I'm not surprised.

Men of America,You have learned and read about the Founding Fathers. You have learned and read about how we won our independence from Britain. Have you ever considered what you must do also? You must act like men just like they did. It is your duty, not only as an American, but as a man, to own firearms, with lots and lots of ammunition and to be proficient with them. Do not rely on the state to defend you; they will not protect you from themselves.

"Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in order that we are remembered, as men." Proximo in Gladiator

Hitler planned to liquidate the church once it was no longer needed for that purpose. The Nazis, being Germans, were dutiful archivists of their plans in that regard.

Given the sickening parallels between the two societies (Germany of the 1930s and early 40s and Amerika of today), it will be very interesting to see what happens when the Powers-That-Be, whom Amerikan "Christians" so slavishly admire, decide that these people have outlived their usefulness. How will the John Hagees, Pat Robertsons, Rod Parsleys, and others react when the Regime stops coddling evangelistas and turns its guns on them (perhaps it will start off by siccing the IRS on their congregations for back taxes from which they were previously exempted; after all, the Regime LOVES ex posto facto laws)? Will they become the victims, or will they finally tear off their masks of phony faith and join ranks with Regime to purge the nation of the true believers? The future will indeed present us with interesting times.

Those of you who big up the revolutionists and founding fathers, spare a thought for the American Indians and while you're at it the rest of the planet they represent, imagine what it is like for the rest of the world, which is also Amerika

The term extraordinary rendition apparently began with the term rendition, used to describe the act of recapturing an escaped north American slave.

Anon 10:51,You should read Will Grigg's past essays on Andrew Jackson's brutal war against the Meso-Americans of the Southeast, and his other articles covering the atrocities committed by the U.S. government against those hapless people. One thing is clear. The state never changes; it can be counted on for one thing: Democide!

"Mandatory volunteerism" is not on the horizon. It's already here. "Community Service"/"mandatory volunteerism" is already a requirement in many schools in order to qualify to graduate. In government schools and also in private prep schools. It has for many years been a requirement to qualify for National Honor Society and for eligibility for many scholarships. It is part of one's requirement for admittance to certain universities. In the usual incremental fashion the sheople are being moved along to accept the next step. It's part of the indoctrination used on the inmates in the government brain laundries. It's part of Amerika's tech-prep, Outcome Based, restructured "education" system. Up to now one was free to refuse if one chose to be ineligible for the "goodies" but the next step will be do it or be fined or go to jail. The time to complain was a couple of generations ago.

This nation should never, repeat never opened Lady Liberty's arms to those huddled masses from Eastern Europe who brought with them the seeds of the destruction we witness today. We were kind, and we were welcoming. From the 1880's to 1925 immigration was to shape the United States a century later. What fruit will bear those 30,000,000 "guest workers" from south of our borders in the next century to come?

So lovely to find all this anti-Judaic and broader racist feeling in the company of Mr Griggs. What a stink i am holding my nose as i type in the sewer of your prejudice, real excrement is more worthwhile than some of the attitudes dispayed, as it's genuinely fertile - in an earthly food growing sense.

Cutting to the chase:

"Rather than catechizing them in collectivism, young people desperately need to be taught that the only genuine public service is that which takes place through commerce and contract"

I shoud like to challenge this assertion. A covenant of love between a parent and small child, or conversely child and ageing parent though 'private' in a sense is hardly commercial or contractual, yet it is service.

And the same covenental principle is extended, on a daily basis by good people to their neighbours, friends or even for complete strangers, human beings who the shall never meet, our great great grandchildren for example, or rendered humans currently going mad in Camp Delta, for example.

I wonder how it is that a man of your intelligence can ignore the example of the founder of the religion he professes to follow in such a broad and exclusively financial (commercial) / narrow (contractual) sense (your definition of public service) with such ease?

Perhaps it has something to do with the need to flog a book?

When it comes to despising the state, while not in disagreement with you - to an extent - i do think your argument needs some nuance here too. That we should despise some aspects of the state (the satanic parts) is obvious - but also a balanced view (render unto caesar what is caesar's does not necessarily mean 'it's ALL bad') would be better, IMO.

Appreciate the progressive bits that actually work when you see them. And if you look for them, you will see them IMO.

Not just as an abstraction for you may need them or at least you may need to emulate them - after getting rid of the satanic stuff - in the future.

Likewise on the other side you should recognise those many aspects of the commercial corporate world you appear to like that are very fallen indeed, cruel and exploitative and not just the banks (If you wish to produce a genuinely well rounded critique of the state of political and economic liberty in the world today)

Personally to follow your example I have no problem with lawnmowers *although growing food rather than putting poisonous chemicals to preserve, presumably that little bit of England that is/was admired / pined for in the past* would seem a far better use of human space and time but to say "They should be helped to understand that a youngster who flips hamburgers ... in exchange for a private paycheck is performing a socially useful service immeasurably superior to.."

is a bit over the top, to say the least. if a tax funded worker helps a disabled person because our system is not set up such a way that they are supported (God is Merciful, Compassionate, Love thy Neighbour as yourself) and our religious understanding and determination so weak that they are not going to be taken care of by the local communities in which they live then i am glad that someone other than privately controlled profit-motive organisations that exclude people on the basis of how much money they have, personally, are doing so.

to say that someone working to sell crappy food which has been produced through exploitative and abusive production methods (vis a vis, the cow, the planet, and human dignity for example) is a better example of public service than taking care of someone with special needs and being paid for it with a little bit of your money (either because you can't be bothered to do it, or would rather have someone else do the dirty work God has commanded you do on His behalf) then so be it, but it is my understanding of religion that you and others like you will pay for it in the hereafter. God is Great and the Fire a Painful Doom

"Young people must be taught to shun the State as their mortal enemy, rather than to embrace it as their redeemer."

Try shunning ALL structures of power that do not put people equally in the driving seat, with others in common cause and you've got it.

It ain't just about the state, pay-check mate, there is a market and the question of true religion to deal with, too:Chief Rabbi at Lambeth

Will, I've said the same thing as you... that regardless of whether they force you into their "service" you don't have to participate. Let them throw you in the klink and what will they do then!

But, of course, we have guards trained in dehumanizing those in their charge (has it ever been different?) so they would likely intimidate or brutalize them into submission. I'd like to think that they will withstand such lies and be true men and women of character and not weasly wimps.

Now as far as Curt's comments about that dreaded "Zionist" threat... (cue Homer Simpson) "Ziiiiooonist"

So what else is new. There has been a hardcore group within the US for ages with willing and able non-zionist enablers inside and out. Just to be clear lets not get carried away and blame Jews just for being Jews. That's like blaming all Americans for the evil machinations of those idiots at the top.

I've known plenty of so-called "Christians" who suck the socialist teat, lies and all, with such a zeal that it's obscene! The difference being? There isn't any!

The mindset of the thirties that inculcated this poisonous train of thought in the Germanic Volk isn't much different than what is exhibited amongst our Amerikan Bruder und Schwestern.

We can thank TV for helping to level the intellectual cranial topography of Boobus-Americanus to something resembling a babies hynie!

Mark, for somebody eager to tutor the rest of us regarding the need to recognize "nuance," you seem quite oblivious to the same with respect to the practice of tolerating views one finds genuinely repulsive.

What we have here is not a "sewer of ... prejudice," but rather an occasional effort to ruin the party by putting a turd in the punchbowl. That's an obvious and pretty significant distinction, one easily recognized by a master of nuance like yourself.

There is much of substance and merit in the rest of your post to which I would like to respond later. For now I will simply point out that I see service rendered in the covenant relationship between parents and children, and other forms of altruism, as private service.

There's nothing wrong, and a great deal right, with public service that is offered through a sense of altruism. But doing so through the mechanism of contract is more desirable than practicing the evil of coercion.

Will, the poster that says "Jugend dient dem Führer" in essence means what you said, but literally means "Youth serve the Leader". They might not de jure "own" you, but de facto, they do. As a prime ingredient of fascism or nazism, a sense of "belonging" is paramount, it's just making sure the peons understand the correct sense of "belonging." In other words, we BELONG to it and not vise versa. To the discerning, this is just merely an attempt to substitute the State in place of God as master in the people's collective mind. Subverting religion, particularly Christianity, is a prime goal after all. Nothing new there.

if a tax funded worker helps a disabled person because our system is not set up such a way that they are supported (God is Merciful, Compassionate, Love thy Neighbour as yourself) and our religious understanding and determination so weak that they are not going to be taken care of by the local communities in which they live then i am glad that someone other than privately controlled profit-motive organisations that exclude people on the basis of how much money they have, personally, are doing so.

First of all, mark, you're assuming the State is immune to budget constraints with which private "profit-motive" organizations regularly have to be cognizant of. Nonsense. While it's true that the State can prolong its profligate spending far beyond what a private entity could ever hope to manage, as its revenue generation and credit line are based on confiscation rather than voluntary exchange, nevertheless it cannot go on indefinitely. There reaches a point where the the commoner folk (specifically the middle or producer class of that group) have been emptied of their wealth and no amount of additional squeezing will plop out another damn dime. After all, one you can't extract blood from a turnip.

Secondly, if the people's "religious understanding and determination [is] so weak" what on earth makes you think the State's "religious understanding and determination" will be so strong? Ain't governments at least a rough reflection of the people over which they rule? After all, it's precisely the same folk who you claim are so careless on a personal level that largely fill the halls of government, mark. No, the State will act accordingly, and reflect the populace accordingly, especially when the decision comes down to supporting non-productive citizens such as a disabled person, an elderly person, etc. Euthanasia and abortion, naturally, are products of the collective people's dearth of "religious understanding and determination" and the State obviously reflects that.

to say that someone working to sell crappy food which has been produced through exploitative and abusive production methods (vis a vis, the cow, the planet, and human dignity for example) is a better example of public service than taking care of someone with special needs and being paid for it with a little bit of your money (either because you can't be bothered to do it, or would rather have someone else do the dirty work God has commanded you do on His behalf) then so be it, but it is my understanding of religion that you and others like you will pay for it in the hereafter. God is Great and the Fire a Painful Doom

mark, you sound a lot like Martin Sheen back in the 80s when he slept for night on manhole covers in Washington D.C. The media was fawning over it, the "compassion" of it, ad nauseam. Sheen, of course, was merely petitioning government on behalf of the homeless, not demonstrating any true compassion. Is there really any other kind of compassion implored by a Hollyweird celebrity? Gee, he could easily have demonstrated real compassion by inviting the homeless fellas down to his fat Beverly Hills crib for a warm meal, clothing, and a place to sleep OR by giving the poor fellas some essentials of life, perhaps helped them get a job, hired them himself for yardwork, whatever, but all peformed at his expense, with his OWN money! Instead, it was all show and he wanted government to take "a little bit of YOUR money" to perpetuate homelessness, essentially.

It must be remembered that when falsely accepted by the commoners that government grants rights, "cares for" people (the reasoning given is irrelevant), etc., etc., it must also thereby be accepted by the commoners that government can revoke those rights, halt that "care," and does so.

In the UK, charity may be all but unknown nowadays, but in the US it's not...yet at least. Sure, donations and volunteer work may be down sharply precisely because of government-induced problems in the economy - the debasement of the currency, the housing bubble, the high cost of fuel and food (eco-nazi regulations, ethanol subsidies, and the currency debasement), and other areas.

"if a tax funded worker helps a disabled person because our system is not set up such a way that they are supported (God is Merciful, Compassionate, Love thy Neighbour as yourself) and our religious understanding and determination so weak that they are not going to be taken care of by the local communities in which they live then i am glad that someone other than privately controlled profit-motive organisations that exclude people on the basis of how much money they have, personally, are doing so."

Before violent men using other people's money usurped true charity in the early 1900's, people had far more money to donate to effective charities. And they did. Religious and parochial schools provided high-quality, inexpensive education to even the poorest children. "Social Security" was having 8 children and good neighbors who looked out for you. Mutual aid societies were phenomenally commonplace. They made it possible for the common man to have medical care and life insurance.

Fast forward to today: Now, when the government robs you of over 30% of your income, a grandiose portion of which is being used to create and ensure emotional and physical dependency, are you feeling much urge to donate money, when so much has already been stolen from you? Nobody under 50 will see a dime of their stolen Socialist Security money. It's already been taken from you at the point of a gun or the threat thereof, and redistributed to others. The State doesn't care if it actually helps anyone. Why should it? Get the government out of providing help to the needy. They have every incentive to keep people poor, while individuals and religion-based organizations do not.

Believe it or not, roads, hospitals, charity, efficient transportation and order would exist without a tax-funded State. People would not start slaking their thirst with the warm blood of freshly-killed kittens if there did not exist an institution with a laughable claim to a monopoly on violence. But some people can't think outside the State.

As for the racist, everyone else was ignoring him. I think that on a basic human interaction level, nobody here cares what you are, as long as you do not initiate violence against others. I don't think anyone here likes racists, however. Especially statist racists.

"To put it in a single phrase: Young people must be taught to shun the State as their mortal enemy, rather than to embrace it as their redeemer."

Wow! That is one of the most powerful sentences I have ever read. I hate to advocate it but in these "bumper sticker mentalities" times it would make a great bumper sticker. (Pardon the doublethink.) Of course any car displaying said bumper sticker would become an instant cop magnet. But we must fight back anyway we can. Mr Grigg, you are a gift from God.

I often tutor high schoolers in writing, particularly persuasive essays like those required by the SAT college entrance exam. These students are often over-committed in volunteer work. They add to their list of "volunteer hours" to get into NHS or to puff up their college applications.

So... I often ask them to discuss this prompt: "Should volunteer work be made mandatory?"

I'd have to say a majority respond with "Yes."

I ask them if this is not "slavery," and they often have trouble making the connection. These are students with high GPAs, but suffer from the indoctrination from the public school system and the media.

Their volunteer work combines with their travel and socializing with others their own age. They see Obama's appeal as some kind of "international do-goodism."

Nazis Did Persecute Christians and Fronted Their Own Version of "German Church"

You wrote..."...the churches supported Adolf Hitler, and despite all the Jewish propaganda to the contrary, the fact of the matter is, he didn't suppress religious freedom in Germany - he didn't have to - the churches and the people supported him up until the very end.

Apparently, Maynard, you can't read. I said Hitler feared a determined Righteousness in the German churches...which he never saw and thus, he prevailed.

However, Hitler was an occultist in private belief and practice. He always feared the churches and their beliefs. With regards to the comments, I have yet to find any Pro-Nazi American with more than a superficial understanding of the(abominable) Nazi history he or she may claim to espouse.

1)In order to neutralize the churches in Germany, Hitler and his Nazi thugs (bureaucracy and Party adherents) created the "German Church Movement". This new "denomination" was heavily financed by the same Wall Street financiers who financed Hitler's rise to power.

2) In much the same way as liberal and Liberation theologians are quoted in the Press today when any religious opinion is needed for social commentary, the new "German Church" denomination - its ministers, its bishops, and their publications - got all the "official press", government subsidies, and official praise, on the premise that the German Church Movement actually and only "represented" German Christianity.

When Hitler wanted "church" opinion or needed "Christian" propaganda to bolster his public image, he turned with deliberation to the front he helped create (but again, was financed for him). Thus, he could make himself look "Christian" when needed... and reject it when advantageous.

The "German Church", though tactically named, never achieved more than 20% of those who claimed to be "Christian" in any sense of the term... but, from 1935 and following, its "officers" and "publications" received over 90% of all government endorsements, positive quotes, citations and Nazi Party public acclaim in all matters pertaining to anything deemed "church", "Christian" or even "doctrine".

3) As to this last point, interestingly enough, even though Hitler ALWAYS insisted his was a "Christianity" without creed or doctrine, he did not want to be held to any OBJECTIVE standard of faith and conduct.

He publicly attacked the "Semitic" Law of God, for example, not wishing to be bound by its tenets.

Of course, Adolph had no problem demanding conformity "for the sake of the Reich" for all churches.

4) He finally resorted to martial law to suppress all church opposition, doctrines, missions, schools, seminaries, pulpits, and publications. This is how he maintained the image of solidarity with German Christianity and Naziism. He suppressed the opposing churches (Bonhoeffer, Niemeyer, etc.)

5) In 1937, his Minister of Education, Hans Kerl publicly shocked all of Germany when he demanded all Lutheran Bishops conform to the new "official" Nazi position that "Jesus Christ was a laughable dogma of the past."

So much for the alleged "Christianity" of Adolph or his Nazis.

Though this was by no means the only issue during this era (there were hundreds of issues documented in this social "war" for the soul of the churches) Kerl and Hitler underestimated the opposition to this statement.

6) From this point on, the Nazis went after all aspects of church opposition:

- They demanded accountability of all churches in missions programs, youth group activities, and publications, citing a need to "support the Reich."

- The historic Gospel was deemed to be a "semitic" innovation, this position being taken by Hitler's "German Church" (1937), and was replaced with "Reich supremacy" as the "gospel".

- All monies collected by the churches were subject to scrutiny by authorities/tax men ... with oversight of these authorities coming in the form of the rising Gestapo.- All preaching was subject to scrutiny, with German secret police "moles" bringing regular accusations against ministers in all churches who "resisted the [ed. alleged] 'historic' Reich mission." - the Reich Bishop was increasingly given more and more power to control all churches of any denominations. Many fled Germany for fear of persecution. Many were jailed.

Hitlers' "support" for his socialist programs was very much akin to what we face today in theological liberalism.

The problem among upright Christian people today, as then, was/is a lack of understanding of what is "upon them" in candidates such as our two presidential hopefuls.

The nature of the deceit is one of the deepest in history. Most people in the churches depend upon their pulpits... and we need those pulpits to stand up and be counted, calling evil what it is...with no "lesser of two evils" espoused ... much less the utterly despicable tenets of the persecuting Nazis of old.

My German relatives and their pastor - as Christian people - resisted the Nazi socialists and their "social doctrines" back then... and paid for it. So DON'T, sir, tell me Hitler didn't repress Christian faith and practice. He killed many, jailed others, plundered churches of their resources... and "took" their youth as his own "social movement".

I pray God that the churches rise up against this new social agenda espoused by both candidates, which favors the seizure of our youth, the Nazi-like social programs, warfaring foreign policies, abortions, euthanasias and (like Hitler) control of medical and health issues... and, as always, the essential key to the theology of all socialist ideologies, "a hate-thy-neighbor" program and belief system.

Wayne, I wouldn't hold my breath about the "churches" rising up and doing much about anything. There will always be a remnant, some salt that hasn't lost its savor, but we are where we are today for the very reason that the majority of Christians do not practice what they preach. They are hollow white washed tombs. No different than two thousand years ago.

I would suspect, and expect, that you will see the same patterns exhibited back in Socialist Germany only because it has taken this long to finally wriggle its way into the national psyche so deep that like brain cancer you may try to cut it out but left with little more than a vegetable. Come to think of it... that's where the nation is!

Dixie... thanks for the correction. Late nights or early mornings tend to hammer my abilities. One thing you mentioned about government taking the place of churches. It should be evident to all, as I'm sure to you, that all governments at the bottom line seek to be worshiped and to take the place of the peoples gods. It performs "miracles" and so forth but always with an ever increasing price tag. For those adept enough to see through the charades and resist there is always the sinners punishment and banishment.

I hope our dear brother Curt Maynard will read this. I happen to share some of his antipathy, not against "Jews" per se, but rather against the actions of the Zionist "Jews" in the region presently called "Israel." And also the actions of certain extraordinarily rich and powerful "Jews" whose vision of how society should function was, and still is, Marxist and statist.

Except for themselves of course, since in their grand vision they would be the directors of this system, and as the directors they alone would NOT be subject to it.

To these creatures, who appear on the outside to be people, a hundred million or a billion or two billion horrible human deaths is as nothing, no more than a gentle breeze on a summers eve, if it manages to blow their statist vision of Utopia into existence.

Utopia, of course, includes the fattening of their bank accounts and the aggrandizement of their power over others.

This is fact, not fantasy. Both World Wars, the Cold War, and now the "War on Terror," were and are mere frauds for the garnering of trillions of dollars. "Jewish" - AND ALSO GENTILE, MR. MAYNARD - bankers on Wall Street (John Pierpont Morgan, to be exact) and in Germany, as well as the Wilson government, which was elected with "Jewish" money and financed ever thereafter with "Jewish" money, lavishly financed the Bolshevik revolution, of which there can be no greater example of statism in history.

Mr.Maynard, you cannot deny that they were, and still are, ably aided and abetted by non-"Jews," such as Wilson himself, or such as Bush and McCain, who wanted or want for themselves a sweet slice of this golden pie. (See my offer to Mr. Grigg below.) I put "Jewish" in quotations, because those "Jews" being referred to, and their Gentile accomplices with them, were not real "Jews" or Gentiles, but human parasites, leeches, vampires. No words can suffice to encompass their vast evil, and their treachery towards the nation that gave them life and liberty. It is entirely and wholly because of people like them that so many Jews suffered so horribly in Germany a few decades later, and so many German Gentiles along with them. The horrors of WWII in Europe are beyond our present-day power to imagine.

Now, let us try to winnow the Jewish wheat from the Zionist chaff. If anyone wants to inform themselves, I encourage them to go to Neturei Karta at this site:

http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/greatgulf.cfm

and read what the Jew G.J. Neuberger has to say about Judaism and Zionism. A small excerpt:

"Judaism and Zionism are by no means the same. Indeed they are incompatible and irreconcilable: If one is a good Jew, one cannot be a Zionist; if one is a Zionist, one cannot be a good Jew....Racial pride has been the downfall of those Jews in the past who were blinded by their own narrow-minded chauvinism....In what way are the Jews a "chosen people"? Every Jewish man anywhere and at any time when called to the reading of the Torah says: "Who has chosen us from all the peoples and gave us His Torah." This is the way in which the Jews are chosen. The Jewish people are chosen not for domination over others, not for conquest or warfare, but to serve G-d and thus to serve mankind. The task for which the Jewish people were chosen is not to set an example of military superiority or technical achievements, but to seek perfection in moral behavior and spiritual purity....Of all the crimes of political Zionism, the worst and most basic, and which explains all its other misdeeds, is that from its beginning Zionism has sought to separate the Jewish people from their G-d, to render the divine covenant null and void, and to substitute a "modern" statehood and fraudulent sovereignty for the lofty ideals of the Jewish people...This love of the land and the Jewish longing for a return to it and for the coming of the Messiah have been exploited innumerable times during the past 2,000 years. Zionism has had many precursors, and each has been a curse for the Jews....."

There speaks a REAL Jew.

So....after all this, one has to observe, "What else is new?" Just as vile Cheney and his Gollum sidekick Bush have sought to exploit the love of American youth for their fellow Americans, (who are all most of them ever meet,) and send them off to murder other youths in distant lands who are just like themselves,just as they have sought to exploit the fears of Americans in order to enslave them to the Fourth Reich, it is just the same - the very same - how Zionists have exploited the fears and hopes of Jews around the world to build their Glorious Jewish Empire in so-called "Israel" and its Eastern province called "America."

Sory to say this, but it is ALL about power and money, and always has been. If you want to know how much money has been stolen in Iraq, go here:

http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/print/coverprint.html

and if you ever wonder about the ever-expanding "settlements" in Palestine, ask yourself this: How much money do you suppose has been made by SOMEONE by stealing land for "free" from Palestinians and building houses on it which are then sold to Jewish immigrants? I wold venture that the figure must be in the tens of billions.

And so it has always been. How much money do you suppose the Nazis stole? How many thousands of artworks, any one of which would fetch tens of millions? How many tons of gold from Jewish teeth? From looted central banks? People are even today still trying feverishly to find just a small part of it and dig it up.

So, dear friends and Mr. Grigg, let us not be too surprised. That kind of money can buy newspapers, and TV networks, and corporations, and oil fields, and churches, and think tanks, and yes, it can even buy whole Parliaments and whole Houses of Representatives and whole Senates of the United States of America. All may be purchased with that kind of money, all but for a very few people like Ron Paul, who are either disappeared into the mud of obscurity or, like JFK, RFK, and MLK, disappeared into a coffin.

Mr. Grigg, if you were assured of getting away with the crime, who would you murder for one hundred million dollars? A head of state? A stranger on the street? An uncle? a brother? one of your own children? No? How about five hundred million? Just think how much good you could do in the world with all that money! Ah, isn't that a wonderful prospect? And you have four other children anyway.

Are you feeling sick yet? Maybe so, or maybe not, but I assure you there are millions of people who would murder all of those, even their own child, for even a small fraction of that kind of money.

Indeed, our jolly "Boys in Blue," (or in jet black body armor and ski masks, more likely these days,) as you observe, have murdered over three thousand of us Americans in ten years - more than even the 19 Arab terrorists - and all for just a lousy PAYCHECK!

And when one owns the printing presses and can manufacture unlimited amounts of money at will out of thin air, everyone and everything in this whole world is for sale.

What an immense poverty of soul we live in, in this present world. I believe someone once said, on being offered "All the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory thereof," He said, "Get the behind me, Satan!" On another occasion He said, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?"

Remember, the speaker was a Jew.

Not a Zionist. Not a Communist. Not a Capitalist. Not a Banker. Not even a High Priest. And especially, not a Republican, nor even a Democrat.

Oh, dear me...What shall we do? Well, we could do worse than follow the mild suggestion of the Jew: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy might, and thy neighbor as thyself."

"Every man's life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man's property. We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is his only as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and possessions at the call of the state."

Will, this is an extraordinary quote. I wonder if it can be specifically sourced?

Scott, the original source for that quote was a front-page story in the long-defunct Knickerbocker Press, dated August 8, 1918. I have a photocopy in my possession, and could probably dig it up (eventually) and mail it to you.

A good, reliable secondary source is the essay "War and Leviathan in Twentieth Century America: Conscription as the Keystone" by Robert Higgs, in The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson, ed. (New York: TransAction, 1998), pp. 310-311.

Wow, well that would certainly be a great “service” to my family and myself. I know you are a man whose time is heavily demanded as it is, but if you were to ever happen upon this article I can assure you that just compensation would be returned in favor.

My email address scott0213@yahoo.com if the opportunity ever arises. Send me a note and I can give you my physical address.

Thank something monotheistic-y for this humdinger! I've seen or heard about anti-religion/anti-state, but this new phylum, this neo pro-God/anti-state seems to vector beyond even the most bountiful concepts of hate, humor, hack and hegemony (let's not forget too quickly that those that brought the good book to this continent while fleeing oppression [read: taxes], were rich, white guys that also dealt hand-over-fist in another kind of slavery).

Now, you could say I know little of the bible, and you'd be right: I don't belabor vehicles when their morals--however misunderstood--are so seemingly apparent. To that end, I won't throw stones (though the temptation in the presence of so much glass is, I'll admit, nearly inescapable). I only have this to offer: In this universe, with mathematically infinite possibilities, things are always changing. There's a good chance this kind prattle (and I mean the rough bits, of course--there are some good points, after all) will too.